Bravery
by all.I.want.to.do.is.fly
Summary: In which bravery has more to do with the challenges of everyday life than being a superhero. Additionally, how the Avengers can see it in everyone but themselves and learn to accept that they truly are heroes. Movie-verse. Contains spoilers.
1. Captain America

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: This story is movie-verse. It should be about 5-6 chapters total and will contain slight spoilers for the various movies. Each chapter will be a different character/pair of characters. First up: Steve.

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Steve Rogers grew up believing in the loyalty and honor of soldiers. His mom told him stories about his father and he knew from a young age that what he wanted more than anything was to be a soldier.

He never could have expected how he would get there.

A lot of people tell him he is brave for going through with the super soldier experiment, for rescuing the men from the HYDRA base, for flying a plane into the ocean to save a city, and for many things he's done since he was brought out of the ice.

He doesn't think of it like that.

Steve's never considered himself to be brave. He's just always done the right thing and if that means laying down on a wire or staging a solo rescue mission then so be it.

Agreeing to participate in the super soldier program wasn't an act of bravery. It was simply his only chance to be able to fulfill his dreams. Selfish ambition and nothing more.

He isn't brave.

Bravery was what he saw in the men he had lost on the battlefield. It was Bucky and Peggy in the war and in the future it was Tony Stark flying a nuke through an inter-dimensional portal knowing he had very little chance of coming back out of it.

Steve Rogers may be a super soldier. But he is afraid of so many things and has so many demons waiting at the back of his mind he doubts he will ever be able to agree with those who praise him for his bravery.

Inside he's still just a kid from Brooklyn, too dumb to back down from a fight.

Steve finds it funny that bravery is seen as such a "heroic" trait because he loves to see it the most in people that are completely ordinary. He goes for walks around the city sometimes and smiles whenever he sees people asking for signatures or holding picket signs. He thinks those people are brave for standing up and doing work that needs to be done regardless of how it may affect them personally.

He doesn't know why he can't seem to put himself in the same category even though he goes out and fights to change the world in different ways.

So Steve fights and bleeds and has a few close brushes with death and all the while he never quite believes that he's a hero.

However, to the rest of the Avengers and the rest of the world as well, Steve Rogers is more of a hero than anyone and whether he believes he's brave or not, he always will be in their eyes.

To them it doesn't matter that he's afraid because he pushes it aside and fights anyway. Steve Rogers is loyal and brave and has more honor than half of SHEILD put together. And he will always be their Captain.

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Review?


	2. The Hulk

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

A/N: This time it's Bruce's turn.

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"_And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."_

Bruce Banner didn't quite know what to make of Tony Stark. He was loud, arrogant, sarcastic, and a multitude of other things that Bruce was never accustomed to being around. At first he thought it might be a problem, but he quickly realized that Tony Stark was the only person attached to SHIELD that didn't think of him as a threat. It was…nice.

His condition had been brought on by an experiment he should have left alone and before being recruited for the Avengers, he had hated it with a passion. Bruce liked control, in science and in life. The "other guy" didn't allow him a whole lot of that.

He was starting to realize though that maybe losing control could be a good thing at certain times. He knew that his help had been very much needed in the battle against Loki's army and that made him feel a little less like a monster.

Bruce didn't have friends. He never really had. He was shy and liked keeping to himself even before his accident and afterwards…well, the ability to turn into a hulking rage monster didn't really inspire a lot of warm, friendly feelings from anyone.

Except, apparently, Tony Stark.

Bruce couldn't figure out exactly why Tony had decided to befriend him, but that's exactly what had happened. Maybe it was because Tony knew a little bit about the isolation of genius and a desire for control. Maybe it was just because they spoke the same language and they could make great lab partners. Either way, Tony Stark had changed the course of his life as a friend and as a teammate.

Being a member of a team of superheroes would take getting used to, but it gave him something to live for. He had done terrible things in his life and the fact that most of them were accidents didn't make him feel better. The Avengers allowed him to redeem himself in his own eyes if not those of the rest of the world.

Bruce is still afraid most of the time. Of himself, of the things he could do if he gave up control. But there are people in his life now that see him as a hero. Eventually he might be able to believe it himself.

Control may be what he needs, but losing it is what the world asks of him. Maybe it's time for him to fight that fear.

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A/N: In my humble opinion, the concept of bravery has far more to do with being afraid and choosing to do something anyway because it happens to be the right thing to do than it does with simply charging into a situation heroically. Part of the reason I think the Avengers work so well is that they each have a lot of issues that (at least initially) keep them from believing they really are heroes. I wanted to write this particular fic to express that.


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